These teachings relate generally to compact alignment tolerant optical interconnects, and, more particularly to small footprint and ruggedly packaged optoelectronic devices.
In the optical interconnect system or optical data pipe approach of U.S. Pat. No. 7,015,454, mating emitter and detector arrays are pre-aligned and fixed on or near the ends of a gradient index rod imager, and this flexible pre-aligned structure is then mounted to the host. Using this technology hundreds or thousands of high bandwidth channels can be interconnected for short distances (intra-die, between neighboring chips or MCMS) or over relatively long distances (full board wrap-around, board-to-board, computer to peripheral, computer to computer, etc.). The optical interconnect system of U.S. Pat. No. 7,015,454 provides a nearly lossless one-to-one optical interconnection from a set of input channels to a set of output channels, and supports extreme density, low power, and low crosstalk for high bandwidth signals.
The system of U.S. Pat. No. 7,015,454 can be pre-aligned and fixed during manufacture (e.g., using automated alignment and cementing procedures) to produce optical interconnects that have relaxed alignment tolerances and are thus readily usable in the field by non-optical personnel. The interconnection systems of U.S. Pat. No. 7,015,454 are tolerant of handling, bending and displacements among interconnected components without losing their function of interconnecting many closely packed (dense) optical channels. However, the utility of interconnection systems of U.S. Pat. No. 7,015,454 would be increased if the interconnection systems could be provided in a low footprint package.